Since I am slightly allergic to the overcrowded Metalcore-scene (specifically caused by infantile and puerile nonsense), I wasn’t really looking forward to review this August Burns Red album. It’s a collection of regular and predictable stuff, compiled to annoy my sensitive ear drums for sure, or a sadistic outburst of this website’s Big Boss to irritate me, I guess.
This new album by Visions Of Atlantis marks a change in their repertoire. Whereas before you could categorize the band as producing symphonic metal, this album is more going in the direction of classical heavy metal.
There are still some symphonic elements of course, but in comparison to their previous album ‘Delta’ this album has more of an edge, by which I mean that the bombastic and operatic elements have been drastically reduced.
German band “The New Black” have been rocking the scene since 2009. Since then they have been making music that they themselves describe in a very fun way,
“...This is our kind of party: Black Label Society bring the booze, Pantera spice it up, Thin Lizzy add some taste, and Alter Bridge smooth it over before Metallica turn it black... And you can be there, too”.
Since this band’s birth ten years ago, TesseracT created a very specific, own-faced vision on the progressive side of Metal Music. Personally I am not that much ‘into’ this kind of sonics, but when it comes to this band specifically, I cannot but express a modest form of appreciation.
This new young prog rock duo band has probably listened to Porcupine Tree, Yes, Pink Floyd and Genesis a lot; the latter being a rather obvious influence as the drummer-singer of Sound of Contact is Simon Collins who is the son of Phil.
Doomed To Destroy Destined To Die is a pure old school metal album, but it is not only inspired by the thrash death scene (Testament, Kreator, Morbid Angel) from the Eighties. The album also has a strong Entombed touch and parallels to early Suicidal Tendencies and DRI are unavoidable. All the tracks are SS-20 pieces of thrash crossover metal/hardcore and shows how a thrash death core song has to be constructed.
Singer Tim Lambesis, who is best known for his work as the front man of “As I Lay Dying” and “Austrian Death Machine” is back with even heavier music. He already has his own studio. So it didn’t take long for Ryan Glisan (Allegaeon) and Andy Godwin (ex-The Famine, Embodyment) to join the band and switch out ideas.
Short for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, this Italian band (current line-up consisting of singer Henry Guy, rhythm & lead guitarist Yorga, rhythm guitarist Jason, bassist Rob Star, and drummer Lancs – the latter apparently a later addition) from Grottammare (a suburb of coastal town San Benedetto del Tronto, itself situated at the Adriatic Sea, almost smack in between the larger town of Ancona in the North, and Pescara in the South) was formed in 2005.
It may be true that it is nowadays rather hard to produce something entirely innovative in the heavy sludge genre, but some bands still deserve some special attention. As in the case of Palehorse, a UK band that has been around for over a decade. A major thing that sets Palehorse apart from the majority of genre bands is use of no axe guitars whatsoever, but instead they ad two four stringers..
Get ready for some really unrelentless stuff from our Swiss noise-terrorrists of Mumakil . I am not familiar with their past, but Mumakil’s album is not bad at all. Even though Flies Will Starve, their second full length on Relapse, doesn't break new ground, the excellent production and the flawless (s)kil(l)s, combined with some of the most upbeat straightforward grindcore songs make this album a highlight that should be found in every well sorted collection of extreme music.
